

Wayne MacVea^h 



PROCEEDINGS OF A MEETING 
OF THE PHILADELPHIA BAR 



Wayne MacVea^li 



PROCEEDINGS OF A MEETINX. 
(IF TUE PHILADELPHIA BAK 






'Sim Whi-; 



Allen, Lane &, Scot 

PHrLADELPHIA. 



Proceedings of a Meeting of the Phila- 
delphia Bar, in Memory of the 
Honorable Wayne MacVeagh. 

A meeting of the Philadelphia Bar in memory 
of the Honorable Wayne MacVeagh was held in 
the Supreme Court Room on Monday afternoon, 
January 22cl, 1917. 

Chief Justice J. Hay Brown was elected Chair- 
man. 

Francis Rawle, Francis I. Gowen, T. De. Witt 
Cuyler and John Hampton Barnes, Esqs., were 
appointed Secretaries. 

Chief Justice Brown, on taking the Chair: 

Less than a fortnight ago, gentlemen of the Bar 
of Philadelphia, one of your number died full of 
years and full of honors, and it is quite fitting 
that you meet here to give expression to the esteem 
and respect in which 3^ou held him. The active 
practitioner of the law is by his research, learning 
and fidelity to duty the constant helpmeet of the 
Court, but however useful and distinguished he 
may be in his profession he is not long remem- 



2 IN MEMORY OF 

bered after he is gone. The members of every Bar 
bear witness to this as they recall departed asso- 
ciates, once their pride and the pride of the com- 
munity in which they lived. As our brotherhood 
is broken from time to time by death, our good 
custom is to meet, as we have now met, and pay 
proper tribute to the memory of a brother who 
adorned the profession and was faithful to the end 
in the performance of duty. Mr. MacVeagh was 
pre-eminently such a man. Though a member of 
the Philadelphia Bar, with Philadelphia as the 
scene of most of his professional activities, the 
sphere of his usefulness was nation-wide. He was 
not only a great lawyer through a long professional 
career, during which he held the highest office as 
a practitioner when appointed Attorney-General of 
the United States, but was equally distinguished in 
the diplomatic service of the country. His scholar- 
ship was of the ripest and the range of his infor- 
mation was limitless. Of his virtues and excellent 
quaUties of head and heart it is for others now to 
speak. His last cause has been heard; the knightly 
contests at the bar will know him no more forever; 
his displays of wit and eloquence, of mental acumen 
and forensic learning are now but cherished mem- 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE Mac\TEAGH. 3 

cries, which those who remain will not willingly 
let die. I may be pardoned for referring to one 
of the many services which he rendered to the 
pubUc and of which I often think. Thirty-eight 
years ago there was a vacancy in the District Court 
of the United States for this district occasioned by 
the death of that most learned, upright and cou- 
rageous judge, John Cadwalader. His successor was 
named by President Hayes at the instance of Mr. 
MacVeagh alone, in the face of a strong move- 
ment to have a member of the Philadelphia Bar 
appointed. The appointee of the President was 
WilUam Butler, who for more than a generation 
faithfully and impartially judged the people, the 
last twenty years of his judicial service having 
been rendered in the United States Court where 
he was matchless as a nisi prius judge. For this 
pubUc service rendered by Mr. MacVeagh he 
ought not to be forgotten so long as Judge Butler 
is remembered. 

John Cadwalader, Esq., read the following let- 
ters from the Chief Justice of the United States, 
Hon. Charles E. Hughes, a former Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, and others: 



4 IN MEMORY OF 

Washington, D. C, January 20, 1917. 

My Dear Mr. Rawle : — Now not quite forty years 
ago the privilege came to me of meeting Mr. Mac 
Veagh for the first time and of soon thereafter being 
afforded an opportunity of modestly although inti- 
mately knowing how great a part he took in bring- 
ing peace and tranquihty to the distracted people of 
Louisiana and causing them to feel that the throes 
of civil strife had really ceased and that they were 
once more participants in the civil liberty guaran- 
teed by the Constitution which the fathers gave. 

While the realization of this great public good 
brought to me an abiding sense of gratitude towards 
Mr. MacVeagh for the wise and efficient manner 
in which he co-operated to bring the result about, 
there was at the same time produced upon me a 
lasting appreciation of his attainments and char- 
acter; of the alertness and depth of his insight; 
of the scope of his knowledge; of the broadness 
of his vision in matters of government; and of his 
devotion to civil liberty. In the many years 
which have gone since the events to which I refer and 
Mr. MacVeagh's participation in them, the results 
of a personal friendship enjoyed have served only to 
strengthen and add to the ties previously existing. 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MacVEAGH. 5 

With these things in mind, on learning that my 
brethren of the Philadelphia Bar would hold on 
Monday a meeting to express their appreciation of 
the Ufe and character of Mr. MacVeagh, I have 
ventured to think that they would not consider 
me intrusive if I sought to become one of them in 
the fulfillment of this purpose, and thus in spirit 
at least to mingle my voice with theirs. May I 
ask you, therefore, if you attend the meeting, as of 
course I assume you will, that you use this letter as 
a means of accomplishing that desire on my part. 
Beheve me. 

Always faithfully yours, 

EDWARD D. WHITE. 
Francis Rawle, Esq., Philadelphia. 



New York, January 21, 1917. 

My Dear Mr. Rawle: — I deeply regret that I 
shall not be able to attend the meeting to be held 
tomorrow to honor the memory of Wayne Mac 
Veagh. Will you permit me, so far as I may, to 
join in this tribute. 

It is not necessary for me to speak of Mr. Mac 
Veagh's fine abilities which gave him an early 



b IN MEMORY OF 

distinction and enabled him in his long career to 
discharge many liigh responsibilities. Nor can I 
attempt, within the limits of this brief message, 
to review the notable range of his activities in the 
performance of public trusts. Rather, I should wish 
to emphasize the sterUng worth of his character, 
his strong will, and his rugged independence, which 
combined with his ability and unfailing industry 
made him a public servant of extraordinary fidelity 
and efficiency and, whether in public or private life, 
a tower of strength for good causes. 

I esteemed it a great privilege to enjoy his friend- 
ship in the late period of his retirement. Despite 
his advanced years, he never lost his keen insight, 
his capacity for close analysis and lucid statement, 
or his intense interest in public affairs. 

Not only his native state, but our country, 
is under lasting obhgation for his distinguished 
services — exhibiting a rare combination of talent, 
virtue and strength devoted to the highest interests 
of the Republic. 

I beg to remain, 

Very sincerely yours, 

CHARLES E. HUGHES. 
Francis Rawle, Esq. 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 7 

New York, 20 Jan'y, 1917. 

My Dear Mr. Rawle: — I am very sorry that 
I cannot accept j^our kind invitation to come 
to Philadelphia on Monday afternoon and join 
with the Bar of your citj' in paying the last tribute 
to Wayne MacVeagh. 

I had known him through the whole of his long 
professional and pubUc career for we were almost 
exact contemporaries, as he graduated at Yale in 
1853, and I preceded him at Harvard only a year 
earUer. He rose to the front very rapidly, and 
maintained his lead until he was appointed by 
President Garfield as Attorney General of the United 
States, whereby he became the recognized official 
head of the Bar of the whole nation. With adequate 
legal learning he united a sparkUng wit, a keen 
power of analysis and a truly aggressive eloquence 
which made him a very formidable advocate. 

Ahke in social life, at the Bar and on the pubhc 
platform, he had a wonderful gift and habit of 
repartee, which sometimes ruffled the spirits of 
those against whom his shafts were directed, but 
seldom, I beUeve, left any permanent sting. His 
contemporaries at the Bar have mostly passed 
away. But the whole profession gladly unites in 



8 IN MEMORY OF 

doing honor to his memory. He appears to have 
started out in life with a double purpose, to achieve 
that high place in the profession to which his 
great talents and his soaring ambition entitled him, 
and at the same time to serve the pubhc as every 
lawyer should, and the high places which he filled 
as Attorney General, as Minister to Turkey and 
Ambassador to Italy, were the just rewards of his 
never-faiUng public spirit. 

Independence of party dictation was his constant 
watchword — and it would be well, I think, for the 
countrj^, if more of our public servants were as 
independent as he was. 

I hope that the meeting of his brethren in his 
honor will be an enthusiastic one, and bear em- 
phatic testimony to the purity of his character and 
the uprightness of his conduct throughout his 
long and very useful life. 

Ever truly yours, 

JOSEPH H. CHOATE. 
Hon. Francis Rawle. 

New York, 19 January, 1917. 
My Dear Mr. Rawle: — I greatly regret that I 
cannot be present on Monday at the meeting of 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 9 

the Pliiladelphia Bar in memory of the late Wayne 
MaeVeagh with whom I was associated during the 
three j^ears ending in March, 1889. 

During mj^ intimate connection with Mr. Mac 
Veagh I formed for him an affectionate regard 
which continued undiminished throughout his hfe. 
I feel that I have lost a dear friend whose pecuUar 
place cannot be filled. 

I emphasize this personal relation because there is 
no need for a tribute from me to his abUity and 
character as a lawyer and a citizen. These are 
known to the pubUc and to the Bar throughout the 
country and certainly in Philadelphia. 

His wit, his acumen and his high literarj^ quaUtj^ 
distinguished him in every circle which he entered 
and his loss will be felt and mourned by many who 
regarded him as the keenest and most deUghtful of 
Americans in social intercourse. 

I may be permitted to give a single illustration of 
his poetic quahty. Answering my question as to 
which of the seasons he preferred, the spring or the 
autumn, without a moment's hesitation, he repUed, 
"Oh, the spring certainly. You he down to rest at 
night with a bundle of dry twigs beneath your win- 
dow, and when you awake you find that the miracle 



10 IN MEMORY OF 

has been performed, and the bush is aflame with 
roses." 

I always shall miss him, and I never shall forget 
him, and I am pleased that the Philadelphia Bar is 
to record his name upon the long mortuary roll of 
its members, distinguished for ability and for high 
character. 

I have the honor to be, 

Faithfully yours, 

FRANCIS LYNDE STETSON. 
Francis Rawle, Esq. 

Philadelphia, Jan. 20, 1917. 

Dear Mr. Rawle: — Much to my regret an im- 
portant professional engagement in another city pre- 
vents me from attending the Bar Meeting to take 
action on the death of Hon. Wayne MacVeagh. 

In my association with him in a number of cases 
sometimes as his junior colleague and sometimes as 
antagonist I had reason to reaUze his wonderful 
quickness of mental grasp and his intellectual 
agility which enabled him with but little prepara- 
tion to seize the points of a controversy and to 
make a brilhant and plausible argument. His 
keen wit, his powers of sarcasm and his readiness 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 11 

in debate gave him the ability which so few men 
possess of adapting his argument to the changing 
exigencies of a case and of reforming his lines and 
making new attacks as the contest proceeded. 

Both in pubUc matters and in legal practice he 
always dehghted to be in the front Une of battle 
using his wit as an accomphshed swordsman would 
use his rapier and always attractive to watch and 
dangerous to encounter. 

His death removes one who whether at the Bar 
or in pubUc or private life was always a conspicuous 
figure, and who will long be remembered by those 
who had the pleasure of knowing him either in 
person or by reputation. 

Yours sincerely, 

FRANK P. PRICHARD. 
Francis Rawle, Esq. 



Philadelphia, January 19, 1917. 
My Dear Mr. Cadwalader: — I find that it 
will be impossible for me to cancel my engage- 
ment for Monday afternoon, and I must deny 
myseK the privilege of compliance with your msh 
that I should speak at the Bar meeting. 



12 IN MEMORY OF 

I have known Mr. MacVeagh for nearly forty 
years; at one time quite intimately, acting as his 
junior in both criminal and civil cases, and accom- 
panying him upon election campaigns, in which 
he shone with unusual brilliancy. We also main- 
tained a somewhat irregular correspondence, which 
closed but a few months ago. 

I have always regretted that with his forensic 
abilities he had not devoted himself more exclu- 
sively to the law, and identified himself more 
closely with our Bar. Had he done so, he would 
have been one of our best remembered members, 
for his capacities were of the highest order, and his 
eloquence of the rarest kind. In the power of clear 
statement of facts he was unrivalled, and his sin- 
gularly vibrant and musical voice gave great effect 
to his utterances. He was a perfect master of the 
art of elocution without being artificial, and whether 
he was speaking in purely conversational tones, or 
bursting into impassioned invective when fully 
aroused, he recalled the description given of Pink- 
ney in his prime, but with none of Pinkney's over- 
loaded rhetoric. In fact his choice of words was 
of the simplest but the strongest, and each sen- 
tence, as he uttered it, caused a tingling sensation 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 13 

in the hearer. Another man might have used the 
same words without producing one-half of the 
effect. He never thundered or rumbled, but he 
dazzled and electrified. I can well understand 
what the Hon. George M. Dallas meant when he 
once said to the late Samuel Dickson that "Mac 
Veagh suggested to him what Cicero must have 
been in the Roman Forum." Without losing self- 
control, or exhausting himself by too violent action, 
he quivered both in body and mind in the trial of 
a case. He darted at his adversaries, whirUng the 
authorities on his own side like the loops of a legal 
lariat, or, circUng about, cut away the support of 
his opponents by the sharp blade of ironical analysis. 
While not a bookish legal student, he never missed 
a point, or misunderstood the force of a proposition, 
but was ready to meet it with an array of cases. If 
this failed him, his dexterity was remarkable. If 
borne down by a ponderous antagonist, he wielded the 
scimiter of Saladin against the battle axe of Richard. 
For fifteen years at least, he was one of the 
knightUest figures in the court room. Perhaps it 
would be better understood if I called him "the 
Light Horse Harry Lee" of the court room. But 
those days are gone — the days of Dougherty, of 



14 IN MEMORY OF 

White, of Cuyler, of Cassidy, of Sheppard and of 
the Brewsters, when trials lasted for weeks, and 
dramatic action was not only in order but expected. 
Business has gained, and so has the sober adminis- 
tration of justice, but the courts are dull places 
now that the forensic actors have departed. 

Mr. MacVeagh was a leading and successful 
advocate in the shifting scenes of his practice in 
Chester County, in Dauphin County, in Phila- 
delphia, in New York and in Washington, but as 
he was migratory in habit, his fame, instead of 
being concentrated, has become dispersed. His 
long retirement from professional activity, due to 
public service abroad and to venerable age, softens 
our sense of loss, but cannot dim our recollection of 
his forensic triumphs. Peace be to his ashes. 
Very sincerely yours, 

HAMPTON L. CARSON. 
John Cadwalader, Esq. 



C. Stuart Patterson, Esq., moved the adoption of 

the following 

Minute. 

The members of the Bar of Philadelphia, present 
at this meeting, record by this Minute their sorrow 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 15 

for the death of their late colleague, the Hon. 
Wayne MacVeagh, and their appreciation of his 
distinguished services. 

The activities of Mr. MacVeagh 's brilUant career 
were manifold. He was the District Attorney and 
a leader of the Bar of Chester County; he was 
an active practitioner at this Bar; he was the 
Attorney-General of the United States in the 
cabinet of President Garfield, and in his later days 
in Washington he was constantly consulted in 
causes of national and international importance. 
As an adviser, he was sagacious and fertile in ex- 
pedients, and as an advocate, he was forcible and 
convincing. One of his most important public 
services was as a member of the convention which 
framed the present Constitution of Pennsylvania, 
and as a participant in the deliberations and dis- 
cussions of that body. 

Mr. MacVeagh's knowledge of history, his 
accurate understanding of poUtical methods and 
his power of expression made him a singularly 
effective public speaker, and his appearances at and 
participation in meetings, partisan and non-partisan, 
were in constant demand. 

In politics he was always independent, and he 
never permitted any man, or any body of men, to 



16 IN MEMORY OF 

dictate to him individually any course of action 
which his own judgment did not approve. 

Mr. MacVeagh was sent by President Grant as 
Minister Plenipotentiary to Turkey, and he was 
appointed by President Cleveland as Ambassador 
to the Court of Italy, but the pomp and pride of 
diplomatic office and the enjoyments of foreign 
life were not to him adequate compensation for 
enforced absence from home and friends, and for 
the necessary restraint upon his freedom of action 
and expression. 

Mr. MacVeagh was a remarkable personahty. 
His varied reading, his wide acquaintance with the 
leading men of this and other countries, his acute 
mind, his keen observation, and his wit, made him 
an exceptionally interesting companion. 

Mr. MacVeagh's place in the hst of distinguished 
members of the Bar of Philadelphia will long con- 
tinued to be unique. 

Mr. Patterson then said: 

Mr. Chief Justice: — That which was so ad- 
mirably said by you, and wliich was so forcibly 
put in the letters which have been read, and that 
which will undoubtedly be said by the gentlemen 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 17 

who are to follow me, make it unnecessary for me 
to say many words. But a friendship of more than 
fifty years in duration seems to require of me that 
I should say a few personal words. 

I first saw Mr. MacVeagh on the evening of the 
State election of 1864. You remember that our 
State elections at that time were held in October 
and the National elections in November. On the 
evening of that State election I was standing amid 
the crowd in front of the house of the Union League, 
which was then on Chestnut Street, and a window 
was thrown open and a young gentleman appeared 
at the window, and in a singularly clear voice 
began to read the election returns. I said to the 
man who was standing near me, "Who is it?" He 
said, "That is Wayne MacVeagh, the Chairman of 
the State Committee," and that was my first 
glimpse of him. Circumstances very soon brought 
us closely together, and from that time onward 
I had the privilege of seeing much of him when- 
ever he was on this side of the water, and the 
things that impressed me chiefly were not merely 
his wit, remarkable as we all knew that that was, 
but his absolute decision of character and the 
perfect courage with which he faced all decisions 



18 IN MEMORY OF 

to which he felt that he had to come. In that 
respect he was the equal of any man I ever 
knew. 

I cannot better conclude these few words than 
by reading to you from the records of the Consti- 
tutional Convention words which I heard from his 
Ups when I was sitting as a spectator in the gallery 
of that convention. In speaking of Mr. Hopkins, 
a member who had recently died, he said: 

"Such a man is not easily to be replaced; our 
hearts are bowed, not only with sincere sympathy 
for the afflicted and sorrowing family of our brother 
who has gone before us, but with hearty regret 
that the state has lost his services and the advan- 
tages which his ripe wisdom and his devotion to 
the interests of the people, as he understood them, 
would have helped to give to the citizens." 

Hon. John B. McPherson: 

For several years before Mr. MacVeagh removed 
to Philadelphia it was my good fortune to be a 
member of liis firm, and the intimacy thus begun 
was never clouded, and was never interrupted 
except b}^ the changing circumstances of our lives. 
He had just returned from his first diplomatic 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 19 

post, and was in the maturity of his intellectual 
powers. Physically, as we all know, he was sup- 
posed to lack robustness, but, whatever deficiency 
of bodily vigor there may have been, it was cer- 
tainly neither a serious nor a continuous handicap, 
and during the period I have in mind it was rarely 
even noticeable. Indeed, when I recall my early 
impressions, I see a man abounding in the joy of 
life, a body fully adequate to any reasonable de- 
mand, and a mind whose alertness and perpetual 
interest in whatever was best never failed to be a 
stimulus. I shall always remember gratefully the 
inspiring influence he seemed to radiate, his wide 
and appreciative knowledge of books and of other 
fine and beautiful things, his suggestive talk im- 
pressed wdth the unmistakable quaUty that comes 
from reflection and from the constant look below the 
surface, the clarity of his speech, the frank gaiety of 
liis maimer, his talent for friendship, the cheery out- 
look—in a word, his well-rounded attractiveness. 

And, of course, these and other marked char- 
acteristics showed themselves with due variation 
on the professional side of his Ufe. His gifts and 
attainments as a lawyer are well known to this 
meeting, and will no doubt be spoken of by others. 



20 IN MEMORY OF 

I shall only say a word about them. During his 
early and less occupied years at the bar he had 
worked and studied hard, and his retentive memory 
held fast whatever he had thus acquired, and pre- 
sented it for use to one of the quickest and readiest 
minds I have ever encountered. If I may repeat 
the somewhat vivid phrase of one who also knew 
him well — "He could take up water as he ran" 
with almost uncanny ease, and this quahty, com- 
bined with the rest of his formidable equipment, 
made him a foe to be feared, and a most comfort- 
ing associate. His store of weapons was instantly 
at command, and sometimes he drew from the 
most unexpected source. I remember his telling 
me that in the defense of Udderzook for murder — 
a celebrated case forty years ago — part of a justly 
admired cross-examination that destroyed a hostile 
witness was directly suggested by the poetry of 
Wordsworth. Then, too, he not only rejoiced 
in combat and shrank from no antagonist, but he 
was possessed of a happy audacity that often car- 
ried him smihng out of an awkward corner, while 
his contagious himior saved the situation from 
offense. He was so clearly fitted for large affairs 
and for wide opportunities that no one was sur- 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 21 

prised when he left the narrower field in which I 
first came to know him. As age advanced and laid 
its hand upon him, he gradually turned to other 
occupations and found diversion for his leisure in 
the social life that always gave him such satisfaction. 
In the most recent years the Bar has scarcely known 
him, but among the reasons for doing his memory 
honor, his distinction as a lawyer must always take 
high place. Even if he had been notliing but a 
lawyer, this meeting would find the amplest justi- 
fication; that he was much more, it is superfluous 
to add. In several directions his career was dis- 
tinguished; as a whole, it was unusual, and in 
whatever he did he bore himself as the man he 
was, capable, accompUshed, pubUc-spirited, with a 
high sense of honor and a character unsullied. I 
cannot speak of him in the more personal relation 
he sustained to his closer friends, except to say 
that he has gone away and has left us sorrowing. 

John Cadwalader, Esq.: 

The life of Wayne MacVeagh has been so full of 
activities and general usefulness that it can be 
discussed from many points of view. My personal 
association with him began very early. His father 



22 IN MEMORY OF 

was a client of my father, and his first cousin, 
Charles S. Lincoln, was long in my father's office 
and afterwards was the clerk of the United States 
District Court. 

I had a very interesting conversation not long 
ago with the Hon. Andrew D. White about the 
class at Yale of 1853, of which both he and Mac 
Veagh were members, and I recall his description 
of Mac Veagh and the way in which he at once com- 
manded the attention and respect of his classmates. 
Mac Veagh entered the class in the junior year, by 
which time the men had secured the recognition 
which they were hkely to retain throughout their 
college hfe, and it was difficult for a new man to 
secure a place among the leaders. Mr. White told 
me of the impression made by the sUght, pale 
young man when he arose to make his first recita- 
tion, which I think was in rendering a Satire of 
Juvenal. He showed such original abihty and thor- 
ough preparation that he left no doubt in the 
minds of his classmates that a man of the first rank 
had joined them, and he has never fallen below it 
in his long life. 

Today we are meeting as his brother lawyers to 
record our regard and respect for his abihty as a 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 23 

lawyer, and where these are truly felt in our pro- 
fession, no higher credit can be given to any man. 

It is fitting that the meeting should be held in 
this Supreme Court room where his voice has been 
so often and most effectively heard. 

Mr. MacVeagh proved an exception to what is 
usually the case when a lawyer breaks away from 
the routine of his profession and enters public 
Hfe. It is rare for any man to return and regain 
a commanding position at the bar, and, as I have 
said, Mr. MacVeagh was a marked exception to 
this rule, as he did so more than once. 

He was successful from the outset and was very 
early the District Attorney of Chester County, the 
place of his birth, and before he was thirty became 
a great power, poUtically, in the State. At the 
age of thirty, in the year of the battle of Gettys- 
burg, he was the Chairman of the Republican State 
Committee, and Governor Curtin owed more to 
him than any one else in securing his election. 

The varied posts of honor which he filled in 
diplomatic hfe, in the cabinet and as the leader in 
many movements for improving poUtical condi- 
tions, such as the reform of the civil service and 
the reform movements at different times to check 



24 IN MEMORY OF 

the corruption so widespread under our political 
system, are known to many. 

His capacity for dealing with difficult problems 
was often shown; but I think his success in in- 
ducing the State officials of Louisiana who had 
been seated at the same time that the electoral 
vote of the State had been credited to Mr. Hayes, 
to surrender their offices, was most remarkable. 
Mr. Tilden had undoubtedly secured a larger 
support than the State Democratic ticket, and it 
was difficult to show the justice of removing the 
RepubUcans who ran on the ticket with Mr. Hayes 
and to convince them that they had been defeated 
while Mr. Hayes retained his place. 

He spoke with great eloquence at times, and could 
use bitter sarcasm and the severest invectives when 
he thought the occasion demanded it. The use- 
fulness of a man of such varied power and aggres- 
sive force cannot be overestimated. 

Though he had not been as vigorous during the 
last months of his life, his letter to the President, 
urging a very different foreign policy from that 
which Mr. Wilson has pursued, was as trenchant 
and forcible as anything that has ever come from 
his pen. 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 25 

Mr. MacVeagh's career reminds us again of the 
fact that young men seem to have ceased to secure 
any prominence in any fields of activity. This is 
a distinct loss in this age. The value of counsel 
and advice of those matured and experienced has 
always been great; but there is a greater need for 
the active forces which are only possible in the 
younger years of man's life. It is the knowledge 
of what the man has done in his youth which secures 
for him the respect and confidence in his later 
years. 

Mr. MacVeagh's success came, of course, from 
the same causes which are essential to real success 
at all times. It was gained by indomitable industry, 
close study and concentrated effort. Genius may 
shine out brilUantly at times, but even true ability 
depends upon unfailing effort and constant prepara- 
tion for great results. 

Pennsylvania has lost in Mr. MacVeagh one of 
its great men, and I am glad to stand here today 
and pay in a small way my tribute to an unusually 
useful life and to unite in the deep regret for the 
loss of such an honored citizen. 



26 IN MEMORY OF 

A. H. Wintersteen, Esq.: 

" The clouds that gather round the setting sun 
Do take a sober coloring from an eye 
That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality." 

The death of a lawyer and man of such singular 
claim to the tribute of our Bar as the claims of 
Wayne MacVeagh, ought not for our own sake, no 
less than for the sake of those whose grief at his 
loss is more personal, to be allowed to pass without 
some memorial recognition. A score or more of 
3'ears ago, when he was an active leader among us, 
with others of his contemporaries, most of whom 
have since passed into the realms of shade, his 
death would have drawn us together with com- 
pelling force, to speak his worth and to mourn his 
loss. Those of us who took some part in the Ufe 
of his time and were in contact with him in some 
of his work, are unwilling to let the hungry genera- 
tions tread his memory down, without filing some 
protest, while we celebrate the fame that was his, 
and the fame that is ours as a Bar, because it was his. 

We feel at times, as Lowell wrote in his Com- 
memoration Ode: 

"Whatever 'scaped Oblivion's subtle wrong 
Save a few clarion names or golden threads of song?" 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 27 

In such a mood temptation comes to withhold 
all expression of tribute to the departed, however 
great or worthy, knowing as we do how feeble and 
ineffective any words we could utter must be in 
staying time's remorseless hand. But our better 
instinct reminds us of our debt to the past, and to 
the men of Hght and leading of the past, who have 
helped to make us what we are; and it becomes, 
therefore, a duty as well as a high privilege to tell 
our obligation, even though our words die and 
pass into nothingness, as dies and passes the gener- 
ation that sees their birth. That the evening and 
the night come cannot make less real, or take its 
splendor from, the glad day that has been ours. 
And so when a great leader dies, the hght that shone 
for him and us, and shone through him to us, 
though it has become only a memory, still remains 
a possession which we may call our own, and as 
such cherish while we live. 

We are entitled to be proud of the life and career 
of Wayne MacVeagh, not only because in him nature 
spent herself lavishly in gifts of mind, but also 
because, true to his convictions of what was 
right, he used those gifts generously for the better- 
ment and advancement of his time. He saw life 



28 IN MEMORY OF 

clearly and he saw it whole, and his power of utter- 
ance and persuasion was such that he made us 
also see it whole. As a forensic lawyer, as we 
know, he was keen, incisive, alert, acute and bril- 
liant. No element of strength in his own case 
failed of appreciation and fullest avail ; no weakness 
in his opponent's eluded his detection and exposure. 
His intellect was comprehensive, expansive, all- 
embracing. The joys of the mind were his to the 
full, and he made us all partakers of his joy. He 
brought breadth and spaciousness into every at- 
mosphere he entered, and left it clearer and more 
life-giving. 

My estimate of Mr. MacVeagh — of the man and 
the lawyer as I knew him — is based on daily inter- 
course more than twenty years ago, while for a 
dozen crowded years, first as a student, partly 
under his direction, then as an assistant, and later 
as an associate, I was privileged to know him and 
his work. He had long been distinguished in the 
state and nation, and, after retiring from the Fed- 
eral cabinet on the death of Garfield, had settled 
down to practice at this Bar. He was then in the 
fullness of his intellectual vigor, though his physical 
strength was always slight. I know of few men 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 29 

to whom the satisfactions of the intellectual life 
were keener than they were to him. His mind was 
essentially Hellenic, and, just as to the old Greek 
the many-sidedness of life and the many aspects 
of thought presented by it were always appealing, 
so to him the actions and reactions of the mind on 
the subject-matters of tasks were a constant source 
of gratification. He had a fine idealism at the 
core of his nature, which shaped and moulded him, 
and determined his tastes and choices. This made 
him at times impatient with the established order, 
and prompted him to spend much of his energj-^ in 
a public way, in protest and appeal. He was, 
however, constructive in the best sense, and the 
impress he made on his time was healthy, inspiring 
and stimulating. We need just such men at all 
times to call us away from a too-ready tolerance of 
convention, and to make us fully realize the neces- 
sity of orderly progress as an essential feature of 
healthy hving, whether personal, social or pohtical. 
Less than ten days ago he was laid beneath the 
beeches in that beautiful home of the dead, the 
cemetery of the Church of the Redeemer, at Bryn 
Mawr. Next to him hes the body of that rail- 
road statesman, Alexander J. Cassatt — he of the 



30 IN MEMORY OF 

vision and the faculty divine. There our friend 
rests, gathered in the fullness of time. To use his 
own phrase in his Phi Beta Kappa oration at Har- 
vard, he belongs now not to the age, but to the 
ages. Within our city and about it he most of 
those with whom, locally, he crossed lances in 
his time — a glorious company, whom to name 
would be to catalogue many of the worthies who 
have helped to make this Bar great. 

No brighter fame belongs to any than to Wayne 
MacVeagh. He will stand across the past the 
knightly figure he was. May we not say of him 
as we say of that Sir Galahad of story, embahned 
for us and for all time in Tennyson's stately verse: 

" His good blade carved the casques of men, 
His tough lance thrusted sure, 
His strength was as the strength of ten, 
Because his heart was pure. " 

John Hampton Barnes, Esq.: 

Mr. Chairman: — I had not intended to add to 
what has been so impressively said of Mr. Mac 
Veagh here today, nor shall I now make a formal 
address; but I may not let this occasion pass with- 
out adding a word of tribute to his memory and an 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MacVEAGH. 31 

expression of my sorrow that his Hfe has come to 
an end. My association professionally with Mr. 
MacVeagh was comparatively short. It ended 
when he withdrew from practice here upon the 
happening of that tragic event in his Ufe, recalled 
by some of you, the death of his youngest son, his 
namesake — one of the heaviest blows that any 
man ever suffered. Happily, he has left older 
sons surviving him, one of whom is here today, an 
able and leading member of the New York Bar, 
who also has sons, so the distinguished name of our 
friend will be fitly borne and carried on. 

The personal note, which is difficult to keep out 
of these occasions, is hard to speak. No man who 
had the opportunity of personal association with 
Mr. MacVeagh could fail to derive from that gen- 
erous spirit an example of fair treatment of his 
fellow-men and fine consideration for the members of 
the Bar. Of the professional instruction and oppor- 
tunities for development which came to us who 
were associated with him, too much may not be 
said. His marked characteristics in court were 
courage and readiness; he had great fidehty to his 
client, as required by the oath of our office, and 
untiring industry in his cause. 



32 IN MEMORY OP 

As I recall the years of professional and personal 
association with Mr. MacVeagh, I realize how 
eminently he was one of those men whose earnest- 
ness of purpose and courage of living gives strength 
to all of us to go forward for our day, and whose 
independence of action, high professional attain- 
ments and distinguished services to his State and 
country constitute a record of which this Bar is 
justly proud. 

The Minute was then adopted. 
The meeting adjourned. 



THE HONORABLE WAYNE MACVEAGH. 33 



April 19, 1833— Born near Phcenixville, Chester 
County, Pennsylvania. 

1853 — Graduated at Yale College. 

1856 — Admitted to the Bar of Chester County. 

1859-64 — District Attorney, Chester County. 

1862 — Captain of Infantry (invasion of Penn- 
sylvania.) 

1863 — Captain of Cavalry (invasion of Penn- 
sylvania.) 

1863— Chairman of the Republican State Com- 
mittee of Pennsylvania. 

1870-71— Minister to Turkey. 

1872-73 — Member of Pennsylvania Constitutional 
Convention. 

1877 — Head of "MacVeagh Commission" sent to 
Louisiana to adjust the dispute as to 
the Presidential election there. 



34 IN MEMORY OF THE HON. WAYNE MacVEAGH. 

1881 — Attorney General of United States in the 
cabinet of President Garfield; resigned 
on the accession of President Arthur 
and resumed the practice of the law at 
Philadelphia. 

1881 — Received a degree of LL.D. from Amherst 
College. 
Chairman Civil Service Reform Association of 
Philadelphia and of the Indian Rights 
Association. 

1893-97 — Ambassador to Italy. 

1897 — Received a degree of LL.D. from the Univer- 
sity of Pennsylvania. 

1901 — Delivered the Phi Beta Kappa oration at 

Harvard University. 

1901— Received a degree of LL.D. from Harvard 
University. 

1903 — Chief Counsel of United States in the Vene- 
zuela arbitration before The Hague 
Tribunal. 

January 11, 1917 — Died at his residence, 1719 
Massachusetts Avenue, Washington, 
D. C. 



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